It's been over five years now since Cassian won his Games, five long years of parading around the Capitol with only nightmares and a dead family to show for it. Victor's Village in District 11 is so far from his home, his first home, but it's not like there's anything left of it worth seeing. He spends most of his days holed up in his big, stupid house, finding new ways to cook the food he once thought would never be plentiful. They haul him out of the aforementioned house for a photo op with the latest girl to join the ranks of Victor, but if he's honest, Cassian doesn't quite remember how she won. He vaguely recalls a bloody victory, without too many overall kills.
He prefers to forget watching any of the Games.
They dress him appropriately, shave his beard down to a dull shadow, sweep his hair to the side like the Capitol loves to see. He's all smiles and easy chatter with the prep team, pretending it doesn't feel like he's being escorted by armed guard towards the Hall of Justice where he just... has to wait. Being a Victor means a lot of waiting even when they can't threaten you with much anymore.
He should really try to remember what Jyn did to win, in case they try to throw a conversation about it. She's from Seven. Would it be rude to assume there was an ax involved? He finally catches his first glimpse of her across the room, light like himself but pale as though she's made of snow. He doesn't work the fields anymore, but he's still darker than her, and he's not darker than many people here.
Even from afar she looks so angry, almost grumpy, and he wonders if he should warn her. He hates every single thing about it, but at least he knows how to play this game too.
They dressed her in red and she knows why. Every time they introduce her to a new district, they flash a picture of her as the Games ended, drenched in the blood of the District 2 tribute that lay almost in pieces at her feet, ax hanging limply in her hand. Her hair is tied back in a slick ponytail that is so tight it makes her head pound. At least they didn't make her wear the stupid Victor's crown.
Since Saw has fled and Jyn no longer has a mentor, she's being chaperoned by the mother of a former tribute. Akshaya's husband had "killed himself" (been murdered by the Peacekeepers) when their daughter died in the Games and now they've sent her away from her remaining child to look after Jyn since she is old enough to fight to the death but not to look after herself. Such is Panem. Akshaya keeps reminding Jyn to smile but she either won't or can't. The small and innocent persona they had labeled her with before the Games has vanished and in place is a girl who still feels the blood pooling in her shoes, dripping from her hair, drying under her nails.
She doesn't want to smile. She doesn't want to walk on to the stage and smile at the family of a child she had watched be murdered.
The escort -- a bouncy woman all in gold and a smile that makes Jyn want to scream -- bounces over and pries Akshaya's hand from Jyn's arm, bodily forcing herself between them so she can personally lead the newest Victor to meet District Eleven's most handsome Victor.
"Cassian! This is Seven's pride and joy, Miss Jyn! You to chat while we finish setting up the stage! Do you need a fan? Let's get them some fans! It's so hot here, I don't know how you people can stand it!" Her voice is shrill, like the foxes in heat in the forest and Jyn visibly flinches from the noise, relieved when the woman abruptly abandons them together.
She looks at the boy in front of her. Man? He isn't that much older than her. Saw had made her and Codo watch his Games as part of her training, in case they found themselves in a snow globe, and it couldn't have been more than five years prior and he was young. Jyn is 16, Codo was 18. Cassian is probably closer to Codo's age.
She looks at him, green eyes calculative, but she doesn't say anything.
He barely remembers what they dressed him in on his own Tour. Lots of pale hues to callback to the ice and snow, occasionally accentuated by pops of color that would remind him specifically of the tributes from each district he killed. Red for the career allies he slaughtered without warning. Drowning the boy from Five in the ice lake. The chunk of ice he jabbed into the neck of the girl from Six to claim his victory, his white uniform stained with her blood. His arena was the coldest place he'd ever been, but fortunately he'd been gifted with a coat and other useful items. And unfortunately, because he knew exactly why.
Cassian was barely fourteen years old when he got reaped, and nobody expected him to come home. Eleven isn't exactly bursting with winners. But he took advantage of his smaller stature compared to the tall, broad careers, smiled at all the right people, and the audience assistance helped him get through it. He just didn't know what that might mean after the fact, that his refusal to be sold like a commodity as payback for the gifts would get his family killed. He's been alone for over four years; his father was first, in a "farming accident" after he returned from his Tour, and his mother's "suicide in grief" followed two months later.
He has a cat now though.
Jyn flinches at the comment, but Cassian barely registers the disparaging remarks about Eleven anymore. They just build up instead in the checklist of reasons he hates the Capitol and anyone from there. "It is not the worst thing I have heard about my District."
Her trauma is still so utterly visible in her bristling anger, and the way they've pulled back her hair only highlights it. Is that the point? Do they want her angry? Cassian stands too still beside her, a very purposeful stance he often takes in public matters.
She'd much preferred when she was dressed like a tree.
She flinches again when Cassian speaks, seeming almost startled. She shouldn't be, the past Victors she had met had mostly all been kind. The very handsome boy in Four who smelled like salt air had braided a strand of rope through her hair while they waited and the braid crown had been much less uncomfortable. Maybe...
Her hands lift to drag her hair free from the elastic while the Capital escort is distracted, shaking it down around her shoulders, a waterfall of dark hair. It's choppier than it looked pulled back, as if the ponytail itself had been trimmed for perfect neatness once it had been tied up.
"She's too loud." Jyn's own voice is low and quiet, almost raspy. Like she wakes up screaming every night from dreams of drowning in blood and her voice suffers as a result. "They're all too loud."
He doesn't apologize for startling her, he doesn't think she'd care or accept it. Besides, she's probably skittish. Everyone is, forever really, but especially so in those first few months. It would be so much easier if any of them could actually... talk to one another, but Cassian supposes that's part of the point to it all. There can't be glory in being a Victor if they're all moping together.
He watches her hair fall from the ponytail, allows himself a moment to picture her stylist's frustration.
"They are always loud," he offers, just as quietly, though out of alertness to eavesdroppers more than a rasp. He recognizes that. They all recognize that. Jyn will come to hear it in the other Victors too, but he supposes now isn't the time to talk about it. He never knows what they're supposed to talk about in these moments to begin with, since the Capitol hates its Victors talking.
Or Jyn could rip out her throat. Also an option. One she thinks about daily.
They won't let her have an ax anymore, as if she's meant to put down her District's entire livelihood now that has has risen above them on the backs of 23 children's corpses. She still chops wood, of course, piles and piles of wood that she drops off at homes around her District, but they wouldn't let her bring it with her on tour and she can't help but think it maybe has something to do with her mode of victory and her personal bone to pick with the Capital.
She can't tune out the dramatic wails of despair when the woman -- Jyn knows her name is Hadriana, she simply refuses to humanize the gold creature -- sees Jyn's hair is no longer pulled back and shrieks for Albina to come correct this horrid oversight! Jyn looks at Cassian with raised eyebrows.
He didn't learn to tune that out so much as... redirect. If he can give his team a subtle nudge, make it think it was their own plan. Sometimes it works, sometimes the Capitol or the stylists have their own plan too locked in. He wishes very much they could talk about this freely.
"Albina," he says with the utmost sweetness when she flies over to them in a panic, the tone remarkably different from how he'd spoken to Jyn seconds ago. "Don't you think her hair would look nice swept to the side? Here." He gestures on his own forehead rather than reaching into Jyn's space, touching to the far right near his temple, the opposite of his own side part.
She tuts. "I hope you didn't pull her hair out, Cassian Andor. I worked hard on that ponytail!"
Pulled plenty hard, he's sure. He's all smiles, the kind that don't quite reach his eyes. Before he can reply his own stylist swoops in, like she needs to double check he hasn't ruined anything on himself either upon hearing the commotion. She chides him under her breath, tugging and readjusting the artful swoop of his hair. When she steps back, it doesn't look the least bit different, already pressed and sprayed and gelled into the chosen style of the day. He's not even sure he'll be able to wash all of it out after one shower.
Jyn stands still well enough. She's about as personable as a cardboard box but she has been told often enough lately that she is beautiful -- "Oh Jyn, people pay to have eyes like yours in the Capital!" -- and she's heard Albina worry that her reticence wasn't playing very well.
But at least she was pretty.
The stylist sweeps her hair to the side, pins hidden here and there to keep it in place, murmuring affirmations to Jyn. Jyn may hate the golden escort, but she doesn't mind Albina. She was there before the Games, she made sure Jyn kept her mother's necklace in the arena as her tribute token, despite it having nothing to do with their District. She pokes and prods at Jyn, much quieter than the other Capital people, reminding Jyn that she looked fierce and powerful with her ponytail. Like a Victor.
Eventually she draws back, looking at Jyn with her lavender eyes. She glances at Cassian, back at Jyn and swoops her hair just so before she nods, satisfied with her work and steps back. "There, you two match!"
It's a softer version of Cassian's clean waves, very classically romantic, which Jyn doesn't notice since she can't see her own hair. She does notice, however, that her dress is complemented by his velvety green suit and wonders if it had been planned that way. Had the other Victors worn green? No, just the boy from Four but his was more of a blueish green.
"Will it be much longer?"
Albina shrugs helplessly, unsure. "I don't know, but you two can make friends while we wait!" She pats Jyn's good shoulder and flutters off to... do something. Jyn doesn't know what they do when they're not trying to make her look presentable.
Cassian has not had a real friend is as many years as he's been a Victor, no matter how many times they shove him off and tell him to make nice. It's hard to make a friend, when that person is going to be whisked away too soon, when you're barely allowed to interact with the people who would understand you outside those in your own District. And if those numbers are small? Tough shit.
Sabina gives one last tug on Cassian's jacket. "A few more minutes," she says, which isn't very helpful, because in all these years of being with Sabina, 'a few more minutes' has become something of a catchphrase, a sign she either doesn't know or isn't going to answer. Her hair changes every time he sees her, different colors and lengths, like her head exists only in experimentation. It's blue today.
He looks back over at Jyn. He supposes they match, in a distant way. Really he was just hoping to make her head a little more comfortable instead of the razor tight ponytail.
"I have figured out Sabina's general preferences for my style," he says after a few long, quiet moments. His tone is back to what it was before, no airy charm. "It is easier to give comfortable suggestions if they lean into what is already being considered."
They don't tell you how hard the first Games hit after your own.
Maybe they did and Jyn didn't listen. That is probably more accurate a picture of events. Maybe she would remember if this Games wasn't also shrouded in a fog of grief because Jyn was foolish and stopped a Peacekeeper from hurting someone in public, violently -- Hadder and Akshaya's "accident" was not incredibly subtle and now Jyn is to blame for an entire family being eradicated.
Can't kill the Victor, after all.
Two young Tributes depending on her now has driven her to drink in her off time, like maybe it will dull the screaming grief in her head. She understands now why Saw was often nursing a hangover, medicating it with more lum. She pours herself another glass and throws herself onto the couch next to where Cassian is seated, watching some video on the news. Shining Capitol news where nothing is ever wrong. Her drink sloshes around in her glass from the momentum of her ungraceful descent onto the couch.
She's seen him, of course, since they've all arrived at this Tribute enclave, but she has mostly managed to avoid him by letting Chirrut and Baze and Lando steal her attention. She hasn't avoided him enough to notice (again) how handsome he is, especially when he isn't all dolled up for the cameras, but that is neither here now there.
His tributes are already dead. The first one didn't make it past the bloodbath, the second lost her life today. He's already nursing his own drink by the time Jyn comes over, and he hadn't missed her approach; hyper-vigilance is his constant existence.
A small part he does not take for granted is even though their stylists attack them daily in the Capitol, they're not meant to be flashy, they're not meant to take attention away from the current Tributes. It means there's only small splashes of gel to keep his hair artfully in place.
He's heard rumors of what happened to her family in Seven, but it's always just rumors, and it's always dangerous to talk about. He doesn't answer her at first, taking another sip of his drink while he just watches her flopped over on the couch.
"No."
He never hated her, not really. He's angry all the time and it had cut right through him to hear about her father, but it's not like she personally put him through the experience. He doesn't hate her, specifically, but their very brief encounter back in his District had still been charged.
It's a surprised noise, soft and small. She hates herself, it wouldn't surprise her to know Cassian did as well still. The surprise is that he doesn't. How is she meant to direct her grief if not in self-righteous anger to defend herself from a slight she thinks she actually deserves?
She deflates some, confusion pulling down her shoulders.
The news flashes again with the day's dead and Jyn frowns at the solemn face of Cassian's young girl. She was 15, the same age Jyn had been when she stepped into the arena. Her own tributes are both older than her and both still alive, for now. She doesn't want to get her hopes up but the tiny ember in her chest hasn't gone out yet. Maybe that will make it hurt all the more, maybe that is why she is trying to drown it in drink.
"I'm sorry about Lily." Neither Rowan nor Ash had done it, but the words come out anyway. Helpless. She gulps down half of her drink to avoid saying anything else.
It's hard not to assume everyone hates you. Cassian was pressed for a while after their first meeting, couldn't stop thinking about her in relation to her father, in relation to the Games. But his bitterness moves in shifts.
Right now he doesn't feel much of anything, because he's trying to smother it after Lily's death.
"There is nothing to be done about it."
He'd tried and failed, the same story since he won. None of the families ever blame him for not bringing their children home, but it doesn't stop the guilt. He thought Lily might have had a shot. So much for that.
"Doubt it. Ash's already given up and Rowan isn't pretty enough for sponsors to give a shit about her."
Jyn thought Rowan was beautiful with her auburn hair and bright blue eyes but she is short and squat and no amount of polish could erase the scar across her cheek. Rowan had scored average, a six, she didn't stand out. She was dressed like a tree. The Capitol is full of assholes, no one is willing to throw their support in for a girl who could french braid faster than anyone Jyn has ever met, but didn't have something about her they could exploit.
Victor. It's laughable, this is as much torture as the Games were. Jyn has to hand it to the Capitol, this is unparalleled.
She gulps down the rest of her drink and sets the glass on the table with too much force, sending it skittering across the polished cocobolo wood and right over the side, the glass shattering with a musical tinkle. Jyn swears under her breath and pushes up quickly from the couch so she can beat the Avox girl to the punch in cleaning it up. She waves her off. "I've got it."
Very rarely to the sponsors give a shit about the poorer Districts. The year before Jyn, the boy from 12 won, mostly by happenstance, and it was a bit of a shock. It had led to some of them daring to invest in 11 and 12, but then Jyn won, so this year seems like it's back to normal.
"You will have more clout this year than you will next year."
They love to hype up the previous year's victor, making comparisons, wondering if the new tributes will compare. It's the same speech every time at its core. There's no real victory in being a Victor except being alive, and sometimes Cassian wonders if even that is worth it.
Jyn, however, is already very drunk, and Cassian is not surprised. The only thing he wonders is if this is her first time heavily imbibed or if she'd already fallen under in the months prior. The Avox hovers but leaves them to it.
"Watch your hand." Is she sober enough not to slice open her fingers?? Maybe he should ask the Avox to intervene, but Cassian hates asking them for anything.
If this is the clout she has.. she sighs, picking at the glass shards. Tomorrow she will try again to secure Rowan her sponsors. Maybe she can buy some sponsors. Not with her charm but she knows what the Capitol wants...
She forces the thought from her mind for now. She will reassess in the morning. Instead she turns her attention to Cassian so she can snippily pronounce:
"I won the Games, remember? A piece of glass- fuck."
Hubris. She has been absolutely wrecked by karma, blood pooling in her palm from the slice at the very bottom of her finger.
He didn't say it was the most useful clout, but it's still existing clout. It may not mean too much either if they've all already chosen their favorites.
Distracted, she cuts open her hand just as she proclaims she won't, and Cassian moves instantly, taking a napkin from the table with him and pressing it against her hand. It's hardly the bloodiest she's ever been, not even the worst he personally has drawn, but Cassian has seen enough of it for today.
"Okay, no more." He looks up to the avox, apologetically. "Can you get me some bandages, please?"
While she scurries off, Cassian drops to his knees beside Jyn. He lowers his voice, low enough for hopefully only Jyn to hear and no secret microphones. "I don't like to make them do things either, but we do not have the means to pick up all the shards."
Cassian's first trip to the Capitol was seven years ago for the 58th Hunger Games, and he has come back every year since. It becomes a dull sort of agony, but it's just as exhausting every time. The fanfare, the excitement, the absolute disgust in his eyes that goes unnoticed because of his smile. He was lucky. He was ruthless. He was the first winner for his District in a long while, and no one has followed him since, no matter how hard he tries, no matter how many hideous citizens he flirts with, no matter how many gifts he finagles them into sending. He just keeps watching his tributes die year after year, and then he spends the rest of the time trying to ignore the guilt that crushes his chest knowing he couldn't help bring those kids home. He's not an alcoholic like some of the other Victors, but it's much easier to drink away the rest of the Games when he no longer has to pay attention.
The common area is stocked full of food and drink, and even though he just watched his last tribute die, it would be rude to duck out immediately after, so he piles his plate with candies and fills his glass to the brim. Some Capitol people offer him condolences, but it's more a message of tough luck this year rather than sympathy for a dead child. He downs half of it before he even finds a chair, refilling it before he finally settles in. Some of the other Victors shoot him actual sympathetic looks, but the only other person he mildly gets along with is Kay, currently running amok with his turn to play mentor, so he's not sure he cares much talking to anyone. District Two always has options. He's lucky if he gets a whole day with Kay before they all get shipped back to their Districts.
Happy Hunger Games, he thinks bitterly, swallowing up another huge portion of his drink. He doesn't even know what it is, but at least it doesn't taste terrible. It's a little fruity, which makes him think of home, and then he's back at angry square one all over again.
He's just so fucking tired, all the time, but especially this time of year. He sits down on a couch tucked in the corner, hoping to stay out of sight until enough time passes for him to go finish drinking in his quarters.
Jyn was drinking at 10am when she woke up and remembered that her tribute killed himself rather than give into the games. Tributes committing suicide is rare because they're made an example of -- well, their families are, punished as a cautionary tale to future tributes. Linden's family is already dead and Jyn dreads what will greet her in Seven when she returns to her home.
By now she's eaten and turned back to tea and eaten more, nursing a hangover in the evening when most of the Capitol citizens are just beginning their drinking. Despite knowing she won't get any gifts for Ellery after Linden's stunt, she hasn't wanted to turn into the alcoholic or morphling Victors so she has made an effort to find some other outlet for her anger and grief.
It hasn't worked.
She knows Cassian has had a bad day and she knows now how hard it is to suffer this alone, without anyone else to pick up the slack. She doesn't want to add to his discomfort but she was aiming for that spot to and Cassian snags it before her. She puffs out a breath before she decides to slump down on the couch anyway, holding out a cheese puff.
He doesn't miss her coming, but Cassian sort of watches it in slow motion, like he can't quite grasp that Jyn is approaching him. Their prior interactions have never ended particularly well, but here she is, sitting beside him and offering him a cheese puff.
His brain is just foggy enough that he doesn't question the cheese puff, only reaching out to take it and take a bite. He shouldn't get to eat when so many people in his District go hungry and send their children to die, because he keeps failing at helping them. He crunches down and shoves the whole thing in his mouth far more aggressively than is needed for a puffy snack.
She takes a bite of her own, chewing thoughtfully.
"We had cows, growing up. They would wander through the walnut trees and eat the nuts and grasses. They'd make cheese from the milk before they moved the cows to a new forest." The cheese puffs were special treat despite being so simple to make.
It's such a simple snack and it reminds her of when she was young, too young to realize the shit world they were born into.
He may have bitten into it hard, but he savors the taste and chews it more slowly. "I had not had any until I came here."
To the Capitol. There's a lot of food he hadn't tried until he was fourteen years old, despite a good portion of it growing in his District. He guiltily enjoys everything he eats while he's here, wondering if someone he knows (knew?) helped bring it to the table. How much of the food at all his Victory feasts had been part of his own harvest? He wondered that a lot, every time he bit into some fruit laced in dips or spices.
"We do not have many animals in Eleven. Nothing that cannot be used to help in the farms and orchards. We never had pets." A beat, where he washes down the snack with another sip of his drink. "Now I do."
That feels surprising but maybe it shouldn't. Maybe they are all lonely and had pets to replace people and Jyn has never asked or thought about it so she didn't realize. Maybe she could keep a cow in her backyard. They're effectively large, lumbering dogs. One time she sat down on her break and a cow sat down next to her and fell asleep on her legs.
She thinks about telling that story but instead reaches out to take Cassian's drink. Sharing is caring.
She showed up one day at his door, begging for scraps. Cassian had tossed her a piece of cheese and that was it. He had a cat friend. He was hesitant to name her, simply because he seems to lose everything and everyone. This friend couldn't talk but it still felt like a risk to show attachment in something as simple as a name.
"You have your own," he states, even though he doesn't fight her. What he does instead is reach out to take hers. Since they're sharing at all.
"I was trying to catch up with you," Jyn grouses, reaching over to take her drink back. Now she is double fisting drinks and she had been avoiding that but whatever maybe it will make this shit life bearable.
"Does she have a name?" Jyn used to name the cows. Spot and Splotch and Blot and Smudge and Fleck. Buddy.
Jyn is going to offer these names, as a way to distract Cassian from the fact that she has both drinks, setting one out of his reach unless he stretches all across her which she know he won't, until one of the victors passes alongside their couch and Jyn feels her stomach bottom out. The victor is clutching a toddler in her arms, another clinging to her dress, as she hurries across the room.
Jyn, stricken, downs the rest of her (his) drink and reaches out to take his hand, snatching it up. "Come on. Let's get out of here." Hopefully in the opposite direction.
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ohnofeelstho2018-12-08 12:59 am
come away little lamb come away to the slaughter.
He prefers to forget watching any of the Games.
They dress him appropriately, shave his beard down to a dull shadow, sweep his hair to the side like the Capitol loves to see. He's all smiles and easy chatter with the prep team, pretending it doesn't feel like he's being escorted by armed guard towards the Hall of Justice where he just... has to wait. Being a Victor means a lot of waiting even when they can't threaten you with much anymore.
He should really try to remember what Jyn did to win, in case they try to throw a conversation about it. She's from Seven. Would it be rude to assume there was an ax involved? He finally catches his first glimpse of her across the room, light like himself but pale as though she's made of snow. He doesn't work the fields anymore, but he's still darker than her, and he's not darker than many people here.
Even from afar she looks so angry, almost grumpy, and he wonders if he should warn her. He hates every single thing about it, but at least he knows how to play this game too.
no subject
Since Saw has fled and Jyn no longer has a mentor, she's being chaperoned by the mother of a former tribute. Akshaya's husband had "killed himself" (been murdered by the Peacekeepers) when their daughter died in the Games and now they've sent her away from her remaining child to look after Jyn since she is old enough to fight to the death but not to look after herself. Such is Panem. Akshaya keeps reminding Jyn to smile but she either won't or can't. The small and innocent persona they had labeled her with before the Games has vanished and in place is a girl who still feels the blood pooling in her shoes, dripping from her hair, drying under her nails.
She doesn't want to smile. She doesn't want to walk on to the stage and smile at the family of a child she had watched be murdered.
The escort -- a bouncy woman all in gold and a smile that makes Jyn want to scream -- bounces over and pries Akshaya's hand from Jyn's arm, bodily forcing herself between them so she can personally lead the newest Victor to meet District Eleven's most handsome Victor.
"Cassian! This is Seven's pride and joy, Miss Jyn! You to chat while we finish setting up the stage! Do you need a fan? Let's get them some fans! It's so hot here, I don't know how you people can stand it!" Her voice is shrill, like the foxes in heat in the forest and Jyn visibly flinches from the noise, relieved when the woman abruptly abandons them together.
She looks at the boy in front of her. Man? He isn't that much older than her. Saw had made her and Codo watch his Games as part of her training, in case they found themselves in a snow globe, and it couldn't have been more than five years prior and he was young. Jyn is 16, Codo was 18. Cassian is probably closer to Codo's age.
She looks at him, green eyes calculative, but she doesn't say anything.
no subject
Cassian was barely fourteen years old when he got reaped, and nobody expected him to come home. Eleven isn't exactly bursting with winners. But he took advantage of his smaller stature compared to the tall, broad careers, smiled at all the right people, and the audience assistance helped him get through it. He just didn't know what that might mean after the fact, that his refusal to be sold like a commodity as payback for the gifts would get his family killed. He's been alone for over four years; his father was first, in a "farming accident" after he returned from his Tour, and his mother's "suicide in grief" followed two months later.
He has a cat now though.
Jyn flinches at the comment, but Cassian barely registers the disparaging remarks about Eleven anymore. They just build up instead in the checklist of reasons he hates the Capitol and anyone from there. "It is not the worst thing I have heard about my District."
Her trauma is still so utterly visible in her bristling anger, and the way they've pulled back her hair only highlights it. Is that the point? Do they want her angry? Cassian stands too still beside her, a very purposeful stance he often takes in public matters.
no subject
She flinches again when Cassian speaks, seeming almost startled. She shouldn't be, the past Victors she had met had mostly all been kind. The very handsome boy in Four who smelled like salt air had braided a strand of rope through her hair while they waited and the braid crown had been much less uncomfortable. Maybe...
Her hands lift to drag her hair free from the elastic while the Capital escort is distracted, shaking it down around her shoulders, a waterfall of dark hair. It's choppier than it looked pulled back, as if the ponytail itself had been trimmed for perfect neatness once it had been tied up.
"She's too loud." Jyn's own voice is low and quiet, almost raspy. Like she wakes up screaming every night from dreams of drowning in blood and her voice suffers as a result. "They're all too loud."
no subject
He watches her hair fall from the ponytail, allows himself a moment to picture her stylist's frustration.
"They are always loud," he offers, just as quietly, though out of alertness to eavesdroppers more than a rasp. He recognizes that. They all recognize that. Jyn will come to hear it in the other Victors too, but he supposes now isn't the time to talk about it. He never knows what they're supposed to talk about in these moments to begin with, since the Capitol hates its Victors talking.
"You will learn to tune them out, to an extent."
no subject
They won't let her have an ax anymore, as if she's meant to put down her District's entire livelihood now that has has risen above them on the backs of 23 children's corpses. She still chops wood, of course, piles and piles of wood that she drops off at homes around her District, but they wouldn't let her bring it with her on tour and she can't help but think it maybe has something to do with her mode of victory and her personal bone to pick with the Capital.
She can't tune out the dramatic wails of despair when the woman -- Jyn knows her name is Hadriana, she simply refuses to humanize the gold creature -- sees Jyn's hair is no longer pulled back and shrieks for Albina to come correct this horrid oversight! Jyn looks at Cassian with raised eyebrows.
Has he learned to tune that out?
no subject
"Albina," he says with the utmost sweetness when she flies over to them in a panic, the tone remarkably different from how he'd spoken to Jyn seconds ago. "Don't you think her hair would look nice swept to the side? Here." He gestures on his own forehead rather than reaching into Jyn's space, touching to the far right near his temple, the opposite of his own side part.
She tuts. "I hope you didn't pull her hair out, Cassian Andor. I worked hard on that ponytail!"
Pulled plenty hard, he's sure. He's all smiles, the kind that don't quite reach his eyes. Before he can reply his own stylist swoops in, like she needs to double check he hasn't ruined anything on himself either upon hearing the commotion. She chides him under her breath, tugging and readjusting the artful swoop of his hair. When she steps back, it doesn't look the least bit different, already pressed and sprayed and gelled into the chosen style of the day. He's not even sure he'll be able to wash all of it out after one shower.
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But at least she was pretty.
The stylist sweeps her hair to the side, pins hidden here and there to keep it in place, murmuring affirmations to Jyn. Jyn may hate the golden escort, but she doesn't mind Albina. She was there before the Games, she made sure Jyn kept her mother's necklace in the arena as her tribute token, despite it having nothing to do with their District. She pokes and prods at Jyn, much quieter than the other Capital people, reminding Jyn that she looked fierce and powerful with her ponytail. Like a Victor.
Eventually she draws back, looking at Jyn with her lavender eyes. She glances at Cassian, back at Jyn and swoops her hair just so before she nods, satisfied with her work and steps back. "There, you two match!"
It's a softer version of Cassian's clean waves, very classically romantic, which Jyn doesn't notice since she can't see her own hair. She does notice, however, that her dress is complemented by his velvety green suit and wonders if it had been planned that way. Had the other Victors worn green? No, just the boy from Four but his was more of a blueish green.
"Will it be much longer?"
Albina shrugs helplessly, unsure. "I don't know, but you two can make friends while we wait!" She pats Jyn's good shoulder and flutters off to... do something. Jyn doesn't know what they do when they're not trying to make her look presentable.
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Sabina gives one last tug on Cassian's jacket. "A few more minutes," she says, which isn't very helpful, because in all these years of being with Sabina, 'a few more minutes' has become something of a catchphrase, a sign she either doesn't know or isn't going to answer. Her hair changes every time he sees her, different colors and lengths, like her head exists only in experimentation. It's blue today.
He looks back over at Jyn. He supposes they match, in a distant way. Really he was just hoping to make her head a little more comfortable instead of the razor tight ponytail.
"I have figured out Sabina's general preferences for my style," he says after a few long, quiet moments. His tone is back to what it was before, no airy charm. "It is easier to give comfortable suggestions if they lean into what is already being considered."
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forget your woes and let your troubles lay
Maybe they did and Jyn didn't listen. That is probably more accurate a picture of events. Maybe she would remember if this Games wasn't also shrouded in a fog of grief because Jyn was foolish and stopped a Peacekeeper from hurting someone in public, violently -- Hadder and Akshaya's "accident" was not incredibly subtle and now Jyn is to blame for an entire family being eradicated.
Can't kill the Victor, after all.
Two young Tributes depending on her now has driven her to drink in her off time, like maybe it will dull the screaming grief in her head. She understands now why Saw was often nursing a hangover, medicating it with more lum. She pours herself another glass and throws herself onto the couch next to where Cassian is seated, watching some video on the news. Shining Capitol news where nothing is ever wrong. Her drink sloshes around in her glass from the momentum of her ungraceful descent onto the couch.
She's seen him, of course, since they've all arrived at this Tribute enclave, but she has mostly managed to avoid him by letting Chirrut and Baze and Lando steal her attention. She hasn't avoided him enough to notice (again) how handsome he is, especially when he isn't all dolled up for the cameras, but that is neither here now there.
"Do you still hate me?"
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A small part he does not take for granted is even though their stylists attack them daily in the Capitol, they're not meant to be flashy, they're not meant to take attention away from the current Tributes. It means there's only small splashes of gel to keep his hair artfully in place.
He's heard rumors of what happened to her family in Seven, but it's always just rumors, and it's always dangerous to talk about. He doesn't answer her at first, taking another sip of his drink while he just watches her flopped over on the couch.
"No."
He never hated her, not really. He's angry all the time and it had cut right through him to hear about her father, but it's not like she personally put him through the experience. He doesn't hate her, specifically, but their very brief encounter back in his District had still been charged.
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It's a surprised noise, soft and small. She hates herself, it wouldn't surprise her to know Cassian did as well still. The surprise is that he doesn't. How is she meant to direct her grief if not in self-righteous anger to defend herself from a slight she thinks she actually deserves?
She deflates some, confusion pulling down her shoulders.
The news flashes again with the day's dead and Jyn frowns at the solemn face of Cassian's young girl. She was 15, the same age Jyn had been when she stepped into the arena. Her own tributes are both older than her and both still alive, for now. She doesn't want to get her hopes up but the tiny ember in her chest hasn't gone out yet. Maybe that will make it hurt all the more, maybe that is why she is trying to drown it in drink.
"I'm sorry about Lily." Neither Rowan nor Ash had done it, but the words come out anyway. Helpless. She gulps down half of her drink to avoid saying anything else.
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Right now he doesn't feel much of anything, because he's trying to smother it after Lily's death.
"There is nothing to be done about it."
He'd tried and failed, the same story since he won. None of the families ever blame him for not bringing their children home, but it doesn't stop the guilt. He thought Lily might have had a shot. So much for that.
"Maybe Seven will be lucky again this year."
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Jyn thought Rowan was beautiful with her auburn hair and bright blue eyes but she is short and squat and no amount of polish could erase the scar across her cheek. Rowan had scored average, a six, she didn't stand out. She was dressed like a tree. The Capitol is full of assholes, no one is willing to throw their support in for a girl who could french braid faster than anyone Jyn has ever met, but didn't have something about her they could exploit.
Victor. It's laughable, this is as much torture as the Games were. Jyn has to hand it to the Capitol, this is unparalleled.
She gulps down the rest of her drink and sets the glass on the table with too much force, sending it skittering across the polished cocobolo wood and right over the side, the glass shattering with a musical tinkle. Jyn swears under her breath and pushes up quickly from the couch so she can beat the Avox girl to the punch in cleaning it up. She waves her off. "I've got it."
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"You will have more clout this year than you will next year."
They love to hype up the previous year's victor, making comparisons, wondering if the new tributes will compare. It's the same speech every time at its core. There's no real victory in being a Victor except being alive, and sometimes Cassian wonders if even that is worth it.
Jyn, however, is already very drunk, and Cassian is not surprised. The only thing he wonders is if this is her first time heavily imbibed or if she'd already fallen under in the months prior. The Avox hovers but leaves them to it.
"Watch your hand." Is she sober enough not to slice open her fingers?? Maybe he should ask the Avox to intervene, but Cassian hates asking them for anything.
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She forces the thought from her mind for now. She will reassess in the morning. Instead she turns her attention to Cassian so she can snippily pronounce:
"I won the Games, remember? A piece of glass- fuck."
Hubris. She has been absolutely wrecked by karma, blood pooling in her palm from the slice at the very bottom of her finger.
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Distracted, she cuts open her hand just as she proclaims she won't, and Cassian moves instantly, taking a napkin from the table with him and pressing it against her hand. It's hardly the bloodiest she's ever been, not even the worst he personally has drawn, but Cassian has seen enough of it for today.
"Okay, no more." He looks up to the avox, apologetically. "Can you get me some bandages, please?"
While she scurries off, Cassian drops to his knees beside Jyn. He lowers his voice, low enough for hopefully only Jyn to hear and no secret microphones. "I don't like to make them do things either, but we do not have the means to pick up all the shards."
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i owe you nothing; that's all i've got for you.
The common area is stocked full of food and drink, and even though he just watched his last tribute die, it would be rude to duck out immediately after, so he piles his plate with candies and fills his glass to the brim. Some Capitol people offer him condolences, but it's more a message of tough luck this year rather than sympathy for a dead child. He downs half of it before he even finds a chair, refilling it before he finally settles in. Some of the other Victors shoot him actual sympathetic looks, but the only other person he mildly gets along with is Kay, currently running amok with his turn to play mentor, so he's not sure he cares much talking to anyone. District Two always has options. He's lucky if he gets a whole day with Kay before they all get shipped back to their Districts.
Happy Hunger Games, he thinks bitterly, swallowing up another huge portion of his drink. He doesn't even know what it is, but at least it doesn't taste terrible. It's a little fruity, which makes him think of home, and then he's back at angry square one all over again.
He's just so fucking tired, all the time, but especially this time of year. He sits down on a couch tucked in the corner, hoping to stay out of sight until enough time passes for him to go finish drinking in his quarters.
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By now she's eaten and turned back to tea and eaten more, nursing a hangover in the evening when most of the Capitol citizens are just beginning their drinking. Despite knowing she won't get any gifts for Ellery after Linden's stunt, she hasn't wanted to turn into the alcoholic or morphling Victors so she has made an effort to find some other outlet for her anger and grief.
It hasn't worked.
She knows Cassian has had a bad day and she knows now how hard it is to suffer this alone, without anyone else to pick up the slack. She doesn't want to add to his discomfort but she was aiming for that spot to and Cassian snags it before her. She puffs out a breath before she decides to slump down on the couch anyway, holding out a cheese puff.
An olive branch.
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His brain is just foggy enough that he doesn't question the cheese puff, only reaching out to take it and take a bite. He shouldn't get to eat when so many people in his District go hungry and send their children to die, because he keeps failing at helping them. He crunches down and shoves the whole thing in his mouth far more aggressively than is needed for a puffy snack.
"Your favorite?"
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She takes a bite of her own, chewing thoughtfully.
"We had cows, growing up. They would wander through the walnut trees and eat the nuts and grasses. They'd make cheese from the milk before they moved the cows to a new forest." The cheese puffs were special treat despite being so simple to make.
It's such a simple snack and it reminds her of when she was young, too young to realize the shit world they were born into.
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To the Capitol. There's a lot of food he hadn't tried until he was fourteen years old, despite a good portion of it growing in his District. He guiltily enjoys everything he eats while he's here, wondering if someone he knows (knew?) helped bring it to the table. How much of the food at all his Victory feasts had been part of his own harvest? He wondered that a lot, every time he bit into some fruit laced in dips or spices.
"We do not have many animals in Eleven. Nothing that cannot be used to help in the farms and orchards. We never had pets." A beat, where he washes down the snack with another sip of his drink. "Now I do."
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That feels surprising but maybe it shouldn't. Maybe they are all lonely and had pets to replace people and Jyn has never asked or thought about it so she didn't realize. Maybe she could keep a cow in her backyard. They're effectively large, lumbering dogs. One time she sat down on her break and a cow sat down next to her and fell asleep on her legs.
She thinks about telling that story but instead reaches out to take Cassian's drink. Sharing is caring.
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She showed up one day at his door, begging for scraps. Cassian had tossed her a piece of cheese and that was it. He had a cat friend. He was hesitant to name her, simply because he seems to lose everything and everyone. This friend couldn't talk but it still felt like a risk to show attachment in something as simple as a name.
"You have your own," he states, even though he doesn't fight her. What he does instead is reach out to take hers. Since they're sharing at all.
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"Does she have a name?" Jyn used to name the cows. Spot and Splotch and Blot and Smudge and Fleck. Buddy.
Jyn is going to offer these names, as a way to distract Cassian from the fact that she has both drinks, setting one out of his reach unless he stretches all across her which she know he won't, until one of the victors passes alongside their couch and Jyn feels her stomach bottom out. The victor is clutching a toddler in her arms, another clinging to her dress, as she hurries across the room.
Jyn, stricken, downs the rest of her (his) drink and reaches out to take his hand, snatching it up. "Come on. Let's get out of here." Hopefully in the opposite direction.
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